Unofficial news and tips about Google

June 2, 2010

Add Background Images to Google's Homepage

Google's homepage has always been simple and uncluttered. Those who wanted to customize the homepage with gadgets and themes had to switch to iGoogle, the personalized Google homepage. Lately, Google's homepage has changed a lot: the search box is bigger, there's a fade-in animation and a new logo, doodles are more interactive.

Inspired by Ask.com's themes and Bing's wallpapers, Google will allow users to add a background image to the Google homepage. "We're introducing a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage. You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos," explains Marissa Mayer.

Google says that the new feature will be gradually released in the US and it will soon be available outside US. A lot of people use Google as their homepage and many would like to customize the homepage. I'm not sure it's a good idea to add visual clutter to the Google homepage and to make it load slower, but iGoogle, Bing and Ask.com have a lot of happy users.

Tip: to see other customized Google homepages, check the #mygooglepage Twitter hashtag.

163 comments:

"The homepage does not load any slower," said a Google spokesperson via e-mail. "With or without a background image, the Google search elements show as quickly as before, allowing users to search just as quickly as without the new feature. We make this possible by post-loading the photo -- we load the search elements first and then load the picture into your browser cache and show it as soon as it is available. Meanwhile you can already perform your search."

That's exactly what Microsoft does when you load bing.com, but users will still wait until the image loads if they use a different computer, another browser or the "private browsing" mode of their favorite browser.

Wow, it's a desktop background. This is surprisingly striking to me - I suppose in Chrome OS Google's homepage really will really be the desktop. I never imagined Google letting us replace the simple white, allowing users to vandalise it with potential monstrosities. The examples look fantastic though, if more Bing-like every day...

It is great thing to do for me as I love all the things creative and beautiful. I love to use google very much and also like its all themes very much. I have collected google themes that changes occasionally. m3 zero

I thought I had a virus! Why on earth did Google add all that visual clutter --- and choose images for ME? DETEST IT! Google's white uncluttered simplicity made it easy to focus on INFORMATION ... not visual CONFUSION. How do I disable this it absurdity?

You stupid Google Geek-Ass Fucks! are screwing up a Classic Logo!!! I don't use Being or the other shit-Search Engines! Specifically BECAUSE I F@&KING HATE WALLPAPERS!!!!!Get Rid of the Background. Jokers who want some gay wallpaper can just use Igoogle!!!!!!!

Nobody forces you to pick a background image. If you don't want a wallpaper, don't pick one. If you've selected an image and you want to go back to the classic white background, click on "Remove background image" at the bottom of the homepage.

Alex - that wasn't working yesterday. If you clicked "remove" it replaced whatever you picked with the awful mesa/canyon one they defaulted to when they went live. On the default screen the link was "Change your background," which only allowed you to select or upload a new picture. No way to go back to the original homepage.

You COULDNT disable it a few days ago early morning, when they first rolled it out. It was annoying as fuck. Now, it's just an option. Thank freakin god. Now, if they'd only get rid of those annoying URLs they give you in search results, and that damn sidebar on the left..

It sucks. Do not play with the hoim page!!Do not change anything on the home page!!Remove fade-in.Remove background images.We don't want interactive games on the home page either.Those who want bells and whistles can go to iGoogle!!

WTF!!! GOOGLE, ARE YOU CRAZY!? The very reason so many of us started using Google was because you didn't FUCK UP our screens with clutter! Now you're the freaking same as Yahoo, MSN and Bing. I cannot disable this monstrosity in the background and I'm pissed. I will switch from google just out of spite if they don't give us the option to opt out.

You can't get rid of it. They are advertising the feature and forcing everyone to endure until they return the home page to normal. Google gets sadder by the day. Or maybe it's just making me sadder to see the company go off the rails.

For now, "Google Secure" doesn't have the ugly, stupid, useless, annoying background image. Just use this link instead: https://www.google.com/

I couldn't remove the horrible new Google background image, and I'm a programmer. First, Google implements the useless and annoying "everything" sidebar, now this. What the heck is Google thinking? Why are they trashing their own product? It's like they've been given a makeover by some vindictive drag queen.

Please, Google-gods, stop forcing this flashy crap into my browser window! This nonsense should strictly be "opt-in," for those who want the wallpaper. Me, I love Google's sparse, blank screen. This is really irritating!

I don't care that they use this. Its their choice. But I don't agree with them dictating that we all have to suffer with these fugly images they pick. If I wanted a wallpaper, I'd just download one. Bring back the white background.

Once again Google is showing signs of losing sight of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.

If I liked having a giant picture cluttering up my search page, I would have been using Bing or Yahoo. At the very least, implement an option to turn it off (preferably by default), all we have at the moment is a 'Change background' option.

What's annoying is how we have to have a Google account in order to turn the page white. In order to verify the account we have to get a text sent to our phones. I cannot afford random texts at the moment and I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can't get a Google account so I can't turn this stuff off. It wouldn't be so bad if the background was less obtrusive...but they're horrid. Absolutely horrid. Bring back the clean white background. No more trying to be the copycat.

Why should I have to log in to change it. The https version works now but who is to say they won't turn on this terribly awful background feature there as well. I think the background should only be displayed if you have a cookie set to which background you want and/or in iGoogle.

This new background Idea from Google is the most stupid thing they have ever done. No they are no better then Bing. At least then could have put a button to disable it. From a large company point of view They better come up with a way to disable it company wide or they will quickly become last even behind Bing.

Agreed, Google your fucking stupid. Time to finally switch to Bing. When I cant remove my background, and i am a developer/hacker, this is bullshit. What fucking stupid executive that wanted his name on something came up with this one?!?!?!?

The background images are stupid. Google is a tool not a doll to dress up and accessorize. All the "enhancements" lately only seem to accomplish one thing... making it harder to use it for actually searching! More bloat, more waiting, more wasted time and more annoyed!

Awful, simply awful :( Changing to the "editor's pick : white background" is the best I can do (there's no "remove background image" link) and that's terrible compared to the old Google page. And why the hell should I have to sign in to change it anyway?

If Google had balls to think they could force this stupid idea on people then they should have had the balls to put a comment button on the page so that people can tell them what they really think of there stupid idea.

For Peat Sake, let the idiots have their clutter but don't shove it down MY neck. I want a white page with a search box in it. the word google (maybe) and non of this stupid changing logos & fading in crap.

glad i'm not the only one that hates this google wallpaper thing. This goes against everything I thought google was for. A SIMPLE main page that loads fast. This takes off time out of my day for all the searches I for the stupid wallpaper to load. It may be only a couple extra seconds, but that adds up over all the searches and when you open your browser! annoying as hell.

It must have been a woman...Why do people always want to mess up something that works great. I don't want the blasted picture on there, and now they have forced it on me. There has to be a woman involved on that junk. I want Google, I don't want pictures on it or fade ins or any other stupid stuff. Now a button that will let me skip a 100 or 1000 pages in the search results is something I would use!

Someone at Google is apparently bored and thought this would be a good idea. I vote they slash the entire department that was involved in this decision; they obviously have nothing better to do than to waste Google's money and piss off customers by forcing unwanted options down their throat.

No way to turn it off?! This reminds me of Microsoft, where they think they know what you want - more than you do!

All they had to do was have an option to turn off the demo background image without having to "sign in" to disable it - which I refuse to have to do. Since last night it is a different, even MORE annoying image now. At the VERY least, you could have given us a place to voice our obviously unimportant-to-Google opinions somewhere on the home page. My frustration level was accelerated by the time it took to even find a place where others felt a need to voice the same. I'm trying one (1) of the temp fix links, and if that takes me more than an additional 2 minutes, I'm resetting all of my computers' homepages to another search engine. PERIOD. Maybe if enough people jump ship, they will consider our opinions important enough. Maybe not. Not the brightest move on your part Google. BUH BYE, enough of my time has now been wasted for one day.

I find the decision to force this on people "alarming." Some marketing department at Google thinks they need to look more fancy like Bing (or whatever the hell that is) so they FORCE everyone to have a background image?!

No imagery on the Google home page was pure, simple, and elegant. I want it back!!

you fckng idiots at google want ya balls bashing with a sledge hammer.

For us People in the UK . . . all you do is click on the "Go To Google.Com" and then click the "make google my homepage" and you will get the old classic scren back... ta daaaaaaa... jsus fckng christ... ya'll shud dump ya computers in da bin.. .. LEARN TO USE EM or get the fuck of the internet and stop taking up net space ... u useless twats ....... from the little shit

Adding www.google.com to your content, automatically load images as an exception not to load images from works great it's even faster because the standard Google logo is not displayed.... you get just the search box and all other Google pages still load images as normal..

Take that you idiots at Google. Because of your stupidity you lose your own logo on your home page.

I hate it so much. Please keep google.ca clean and classic. I don't want what amounts to an eyesore, with resulting eyestrain, on my home page.If it ain't broke, as they say, don't fix it.Lousy advertising campaign, too. Fire the bastard(s) responsible.I'm moving to another engine until this madness stops.

This really sucks! Get rid of it! This got to be Google by engineering and not marketing image management crap. Don't loose the basic business model or you will be not far behind Microsoft on the slow slide to corporate insular arrogance.

Google has their head up their ass and is drinking new Coke. Screw this shit and all their crapware, bad code, security risks, and advertising payola which should be illegal. The solution is easy. Never use google.

You can't get rid of it. They are advertising the feature and forcing everyone to endure until they return the home page to normal. Google gets sadder by the day. Or maybe it's just making me sadder to see the company go off the rails.

You can't get rid of it. They are advertising the feature and forcing everyone to endure until they return the home page to normal. Google gets sadder by the day. Or maybe it's just making me sadder to see the company go off the rails.

Asshats!!!

www.google.com/m/classic

except google's own chrome doesn't load that properly!! Double for the asshats in chrome QC!!!

Wait, is it April 1st again? This is a joke, right? Please, Google, give me back my plain search page! I HATE this wallpaper/background crap. I use Google because it doesn't have all that visual distraction, I'm gonna quit using it if you don't change it back.

Thanks google for completely screwing up a perfectly good home page. It was simple and uncluttered and now it's just too busy. At least you could have provided an EASY "click here to revert back to the classic style" button. That way you could track who hates this new crap style.

BTW, you say it doesn't make a difference but why don't you try remoting to a server and then start google then. Quick my ring!

The ONLY reason I use google as homepage on all my personal and customers pc's is that it was a white backgound and quick loading (even on a dial-up connection).I have a company that sets up pc's all day long, and we have suggested google as the homepage because of the lack of all the crap and signing in. So, We will probably go back to yahoo or metacrawler of something else if this continues.

This feature SUCKS so bad. The change background option does not allow for going back to the "traditional" Google logo that was changed a month or so ago when they removed the drop shadow and silver overlay. SHAME ON YOU, Google for playing copycat with rival Bing. GO BACK TO WHAT WORKED AND DO AWAY WITH THIS SILLY BACKGROUND BUSINESS.

Please stop wasting my time and energy with mandatory games and pictures. I can get these features if I want them. Google has been my homepage since forever, because it didn't waste my time and energy. It's getting close to losing first place, because I don't need or want this crap. Happy to find the elegant, simple, fast interfacde again

The really sad thing is the Google officials are saying it was halted early because of a bug not displaying an explanation of what they were doing....Completely ignoring the real problem.. Forcing the change and not having a big button on the page saying [Press here if you think this idea sucks and get me out of here]

This is an idea that belongs in the trash. They should just keep it clean and efficient. Not junked up with pictures and ugly shit. And not force anyone into logging into their Google accounts just to get rid of the images.

They are telling lie. We made them understand that if they want to play this stupid game on us, people will kick their ass off the market and they did. All they say about caring about people is totally bullshit, they just want to get money out of other's pocket as much as they can. It was a good lesson for them to get that their management are retard, not people.

When a corporation rolls out hundreds of PC's at a time with the home page set to Google for a reason. In the past Google was a safe, fast and effective home page to use. If they keep up this stupid shit then Google being set as default on thousands of PC's every day will quickly change. And Google will lose a lot more then they possibly imagined.

it looks good but have you tried to click on a link in the google drop down list while having the personalised back ground picture on it wont work it just keeps going back to the search page (on windows 7)

PPLE WHO CARES ABOUT BACKGROUNDS??? this is just dumb Google is it's own unique. I get so sick of you guys being like this. It is NOT right. If pple want to add backgrounds who cares? If they don't who cares? NOTME!!!!! For good sakes I don't care. Ok well I made my point. Good day! :)

I know this is old, but it never ceases to amaze me how anal people get about change. Really? Swearing and name-calling? Would you rather live in caves cooking animals on the point of your stick? The world is moving forward at an alarming rate. Keep up, or we will gladly leave you in our dust.

I live and die by Google. All I ask is that you don't fuck with my Google CLASSIC home page. I want NOTHING on my Google CLASSIC home page. That is why it's called CLASSIC. It's really that simple. I understand your need to fuck with it; it's in your nature. But you guys created something special here that no one else has. It's called Google CLASSIC home page. Leave it alone. Please. Maybe you could create a special sandbox off in the corner for die-hards like me: people who get irrationally pissed off when you fuck with their Google CLASSIC home page. Just make a sign-up sheet for us and then leave us alone. We are your best customers - treat us that way!!!!! Other than that I love you guys with a passion and the world is most assuredly a much finer place with Google around. DFWMGCHP…Please. Thanks.

This is really cool! I love when you do links to art stuff.On an unrelated note- I was wondering if you have been having problems posting links to blogger on facebook. I have been suddenly having trouble (and by that I mean it won't do it) and so I looked up some other bloggers I read on fb to see if they post links. I noticed you have in the past... have you had problems lately?